Big Tent or Circus Tent? A Conservative Identity Crisis in the Trump Era

Stephen Bannon, President Trump’s brain, was the biggest draw of opening day at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Washington’s annual gathering of the Republican right. After his standing ovation on Thursday, the White House chief strategist couldn’t resist reminding assembled conservatives that until he helped them win the presidency, he and his fellow alt-right believers weren’t welcome.

With a smirk, he told Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, “I want to thank you for finally inviting me to CPAC,” and Mr. Schlapp hastened to assure him that “we decided to say that everybody’s a part of our conservative family.”

If that’s true, then what does it mean to be part of this “conservative family”? Traditional conservative leaders face questions that can’t be solved — and may be compounded — by saluting the previously “uninvited” at their signature conference. Do they embrace Mr. Trump, who created the best opportunity in a generation for passing a conservative agenda by wooing bigots, bomb-throwers and reactionaries? Or reject them, and risk irrelevancy?

At its founding four decades ago, CPAC was a sleepy, libertarian-leaning gathering, heavy on college Republicans, professors and policy. Conservative intellectuals led by William F. Buckley Jr. long ago rejected having fringe elements like the John Birch Society in the fold. Today, the Trumpian uninviteds are ascendant, and their power and celebrity seem irresistible to the next wave of Republicans. Breitbart is now a conference sponsor; the booths of alt-right radio conspiracy outlets line the hallway.

The hot tickets this year are Mr. Trump’s Friday speech and Thursday’s “conversation” with Mr. Bannon and Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff. Kellyanne Conway, pollster turned presidential counselor and “Saturday Night Live” character, appeared before a full house Thursday, calling Mr. Trump a kind and generous family man. By the time Mr. Trump speaks, she observed, CPAC will have been fully transformed into “TPAC,” for Trump Political Action Conference.

That transformation began even before the event opened, when Mr. Schlapp asked Milo Yiannopoulos, Breitbart’s most incendiary attention-seeker, to take a prime speaking slot. Mr. Schlapp reversed himself, but only after a conservative group opposed to the invitation circulated a video in which Mr. Yiannopoulos appeared to condone pedophilia. Mr. Yiannopoulos was also forced out of Breitbart.

On Thursday came another telling clash. In a cavernous ballroom, as Dan Schneider, the A.C.U.’s executive director, took the stage to deliver a speech titled “The Alt-Right Ain’t Right at All,” scores of young attendees filed out. Though Mr. Bannon has called Breitbart a platform for the alt-right, Mr. Schneider condemned the alt-right as “a sinister organization that is trying to worm its way into our ranks, and we must not be duped.” The alt-right, he asserted to a silent, half-empty room, is a “hate-filled left-wing fascist group” that “hijacked the very term.”

Outside the ballroom, Richard Spencer, director of the white supremacist National Policy Institute, who celebrated after Mr. Trump’s victory with his own conference at which he offered a “hail Trump” salute, was regaling two dozen reporters with the story of how he coined the term alt-right. (Organizers reportedly ousted him.)

After Mr. Spencer’s appearance, one critic labeled the conference “Hollywood for Nazi People.” But most attendees brushed such negativity aside. “We got a Republican president! Maybe we should quit acting like victims, and be tickled pink it’s not Hillary Clinton,” said DeAnn Irby, a Never Trump voter from Texas. Ms. Irby’s friend Lauren Harger of Manhattan Beach, Calif., agreed, adding that conservatives repelled by Mr. Trump should ask themselves, “Why are you content to be losers?”

As the event with Mr. Bannon and Mr. Priebus ended, Mr. Schlapp acknowledged reports that the two men weren’t getting along. Smiling, he coaxed Mr. Priebus, the former Republican National Committee chairman, and Mr. Bannon, the Grand Old Party’s marquee antagonist, to say something nice about each other — to do a “group hug.”

Mr. Bannon managed something about Mr. Priebus making the trains run on time. Mr. Priebus, a standard-bearer of what was once the Republican establishment, called Mr. Bannon “very loyal,” “very consistent” and “a very dear friend. ... I cherish his friendship.” It could not have been clearer who was hugging whom.